Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft?

space.com ^ | march 9, 2017 | Mike Wall

[plain talk]

Bizarre flashes of cosmic light may actually be generated by advanced alien civilizations, as a way to accelerate interstellar spacecraft to tremendous speeds, a new study suggests.

Astronomers have catalogued just 20 or so of these brief, superbright flashes, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), since the first one was detected in 2007. FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what's causing them remains a mystery.

"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," study co-author Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement Thursday (March 9). "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."

[Army Air Corps]

Firing up the drive system would incinerate entire planets.

Maybe that's how THEY get their jollies.

[Nifster]

Oh goody...more made up craziness

“Scientists don’t know but let’s speculate “

[bar sin·is·ter]

“It’s built to last can seen from 1.2 billion light years away!”

[Dalberg-Acton]

Are you kidding? It could only be aliens. </sarc>

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Steely Tom]

Because of the inverse square law, it is nearly impossible that this could be a space drive system. Firing up the drive system would incinerate entire planets.

Not if we happen to be bore-sighted right along the axis of the "exhaust," or whatever is generating the force vector that powers the craft.

As far as "incinerating entire planets," maybe, so maybe they have to go out in the middle of galactic "nowhere" before they press the button.

Kind of like our White Sands Missile Range, or Area 51.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

"I thought that it was Space battleship Yamato engaging its Wave Motion Engines."

I was actually concerned it might be the Dominion Terran Battlecruiser main weapon, the Yamato CANNON...

Sure dodged a "bullet" on that one! (Pun intended)

[JudgemAll]

Scientists looking for funding with crazy stories...

In France a physicist says the CERN collider discover the Higgs Boson explaining general interaction with the Higgs Field which translates into mass. His claim is that if we reduce the Higgs Field “friction” interaction we can reduce the mass
of any object to zero

[Nifster]

😱

[BigEdLB]

Wear this shirt and they will leave us alone

[TXnMA]

Space.com's speculation of a brief, powerful RF burst to accelerate a light-sail craft fails a basic test: living organisms are poorly equipped to survive massive, instant accelerations (or decelerations).

Being an occupant of such a ship would be like hitting -- or being hit -- by a brick wall -- traveling at lightspeed...

[doorgunner69]

But of course they are. Can’t recall the books I have read that used the detection of some gravity wave or such to warn of aliens coming..........

[I want the USA back]

Just as stupid as the idea of powering spacecraft with Earth-based laser beams.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Could they just be from elderly aliens leaving the turn signal on?

[lonevoice]

Ping

[palmer]

Just so long as they aren't headed this way.

Since we saw the flash it means they were headed away from us. But that was a few billion years ago, so they may have made a u-turn by now.

[JimRed]

FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what's causing them remains a mystery.

And whatever the source it is long gone, having traveled billions of years to come to our attention.

[dragnet2]

I wonder what spectroscope analysis is or would be regarding FRBs?

[dragnet2]

I would think it’s possible they’re occurring in present time too.

[JimRed]

I would think it’s possible they’re occurring in present time too.

We'll know in a coupl'a billion years!